If you need to manage partitions, copy partitions or even create boot disks, EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition is an excellent utility that can handle all of that and more.Ĭurrently one of the highest ranked hard drive utilities on many websites, this lightweight Windows app is a bit more intuitive than the built-in Windows Disk Management function, offering several additional options and features. In many cases, these utilities are often more effective than the built-in options that Windows and OS X offer as well. In those cases where a hard drive is simply not formatting, partitioning, etc., you may want to consider using a specialty hard drive formatting utility, which will often times make things simpler. If this is happening, this guide may be useful. If you’re comfortable using command line, then you may want to check out our guide on how to format external hard drives to FAT32.Īdditionally, your computer may not recognize the external hard drive whatsoever.

If you are unable to get a hard drive formatted or partitioned correctly using the built-in apps that are offered by Microsoft and Apple, then your next step may be to try and format the drive directly, using command line. For example, the drive that you are trying to select for formatting may not be recognized by the utility, or it may be greyed out and not clickable.

However, there are times when it simply doesn’t work very well. The Windows Disk Management function, pictured above, allows Windows users to simply format and partition external drives.

Best way to format ssd